Meet the Parents

While CBS gives way to March Madness, I’m sitting over here
elbow-deep in characters off their own rockers: parents. Big Bang Theory
parents, specifically. What do we know about the harping Hofstadters and caging
Coopers? Do we ever really want to meet Raj’s family outside a Skype screen?
The lowdown on what we know—and don’t—of our sitcom stars’ hometown broods.

Leonard Hofstadter:
Ah, yes, the son of Ebenezer himself. He never saw a birthday cake, nor
Christmas tree, growing up, thanks to his mother Dr. Beverly Hofstadter’s
practices. Accomplished psychiatrist and neuroscientist, she concentrated his
childhood into a series of experiments and tests. If any of those were
measuring how quickly she could spur his son to build a “hugging machine,” he
passed with flying colors.

Sheldon Cooper: Contrary
to Leonard and the others, Sheldon has the background one wouldn’t take for a
prodigy experimental physicist: a household with a fundamentalist Christian Texan
mother and outgoing twin sister. Fortunately, the mother doesn’t spend her time
thumping bibles and her religion isn’t exactly debated. She chooses instead to
spend her energy thumping sense into Sheldon when he adopts six cats on a
career-change binge. Blog writer-favorite right here.

Howard Wolowitz: Fun
fact—of all the characters, Howard’s parents have never held screen time, minus
the flash-in-the-pan shot of his mother, Ms. Wolowitz, cruising by the kitchen
doorway in The Spoiler Alert
Segmentation. Howard grew up with the overbearing “crazy old lady,” his
words, when his father left him as a child. Despite the trauma, he’s the only
married character in the series…so far.

Raj Koothrappali: Raj
enjoys painting the picture of growing from the Indian slums—an effort halted
all too soon every time his gynecologist father and his wife, Dr. and Mrs. V.M.
Koothrappali, come onto the screen. Both his parents, “Richie Rich rich”
according to Sheldon, live in India, own (at least) one Bentley, and previously
housed servants. Their consistent meddling and nit picking often drives Raj to
cam with them from the neutral setting…of Leonard and Sheldon’s apartment.